Martial-arts champ turns to video games to help son

James Sang Lee's past includes international martial-arts championships, big-screen stunt gigs, a role as wrestler Hulk Hogan's nemesis.

His future includes a business inspired by his young son's devotion to video games.

Lee is the founder of Powder Keg Games, a company that organizes video-game tournaments. He thinks it might appeal to his 8-year-old son, Jadon, when the youngster is ready to enter the working world.

Lee said he and Jadon "connect in a greater level" when they play video games together.

"You can lift weights, you can run, you can walk through Walt Disney World, you can be an archery specialist and so on," said Lee, 41.

The Longwood man and his wife, Jennie, are thinking ahead because their only child hasAsperger syndrome, a condition that's part of the autism spectrum. It's characterized by difficulties with social interaction and repeated behaviors that could be occupational obstacles.

A study released last year by the American Academy of Pediatrics showed that of youth with autism-spectrum disorder, more than half who left high school in the past two years had no employment or further education.

Based in Longwood, Powder Keg Games creates video-game tournaments and organizes events, complete with large-screen equipment and consoles, at specific locations. It has operated at an auto dealership, a megachurch and at Otronicon, a tech fest at Orlando Science Center. Powder Keg also has a standing gig at Fortress Hill, Lee's martial-arts operation in Longwood.

"I think we have a lot of parents who are looking for the future, for the future employment of their children," said Helen Leonard, founder and director of the Paragon School, an Orlando school for students with high-functioning autism and Asperger syndrome, including Jadon. "He's being very proactive, getting it going now."

Jadon, who likes to play "Super Smash Brothers" and "Wipeout," is the third generation with a gaming interest. His paternal grandfather, Alexander Lee, helped import the classic "Pong" game to the United States in the 1970s, according to James Sang Lee.

Back then,Lee was the sole Chinese-American kid in a sea of blond-haired, blue-eyed classmates in a suburb of Madison, Wis., when a 1973 action movie changed everything. It was "Enter the Dragon," starring martial-arts legend Bruce Lee.

"I was hooked. I said, 'I want to do that.'" Piano and violin lessons soon took a back seat to martial-arts lessons and mastering nunchucks.

"God gave me a gift to be extremely fast and extremely good at it," Lee said — so good that he won three consecutive ISKA World Championships, the top honor of the global karate organization. That got the attention of Hollywood, which provided stuntman work, and Hulk Hogan, who cast him as a villain in the wrestler's TV show "Thunder in Paradise," filmed in Florida.

Lee is developing another project called DragonFly ASD, featuring videos that teach martial arts to kids with autism. He began field-testing it with classes at Paragon last spring. The idea is to help with strength training and self-defense, Lee said.

"I think he's touching on something novel, and it will really have a major impact," Leonard said. Many of her older students have been in occupational training for years, she said, and they grow weary of their normal routines.

"Martial arts is often a great avenue for children with autism because they're individualized and you can work one-on-one with skill-building," she said.